God can by His sovereignty decide that people who hurt you should experience His judgement (severe punishment or death) but ours (as those called into the new covenant) is to stay in love towards them irrespective of what they plan to do or have done against us. It is righteous with God (not with us) to recompense tribulation to them that trouble us (2Thess 1:6). 2Thess 1:5-10, clearly indicated that the timing of vengeance God will give to the those who persecute us is when Jesus returns with the Angels to punish the wicked.
It is not in our place to pay them their evil but to remain in love with a desire for them to become saved.
We weep just like Jesus does each time we hear that someone who refused to repent but kept persecuting the Church has died because we know that the death of Jesus for such a person has become futile.
Several scriptures teach us that God is solely responsible for vengeance or Judgment (Heb. 10: 30-31, Romans 12:17-21, Rom 11:22, Acts 5:1-11, 12:21-21-24). This is because God is LOVE and God is JUST.
God’s love made Him go the extra mile to make payment for the sins of the entire world but His justice demands that anyone who continues to reject His Love demonstrated in Christ Jesus must face the consequences. It is a law of seed time and harvest. A man must reap whatever he sowed except he repents from it.
The Judgement of death is usually passed by God on someone who is continuously opposing the gospel as we saw with the case of King Herod in Acts 12:21-24. However notice that God gave Him the opportunity to repent by giving Peter a supernatural deliverance but Herod turned it down and began to receive the praises of men as if he was God. We are told that the Angel of the Lord smote him to death because he did not give praise to God.
God can kill or give other people’s lives (those who are not saved or who are taking sides with the devil) for our lives (Isa 43:3-4). This happens when their time for repentance is up and they must now pay for their wickedness. Remember the cases of Ananias and Sapphira his wife in Acts chapter 5 and King Herod in Acts chapter 12.
Whatsoever a man sows he must reap someday except he repents and surrenders completely to Jesus Christ so that his sinful record can be blotted out (Col 2:14; Gal 6:7). I know you will agree with me that it is God alone that has the right to decide when the time of repentance of any man is over.
I heard a story recently of a young Muslim convert to Christianity. His family wanted to force him to renounce Christianity. They threatened him but he would not give in hence they took him to one of their uncles who was an Imam.
After the Uncle gave him several threats and saw that he would not change his mind, he decided to begin his incantations. Suddenly his uncle became stiff while standing straight. God had passed judgement of death on him.
They touched him and he fell down dead. The entire family members realised that Jesus indeed has power. They had to allow the young boy to continue with His faith. This is one of the numerous ways where God kills for his children. It gave an open platform for other members of that family to become saved.
God knows that that Imam will never become saved and He will also stop others from following Jesus hence his case was judged or decided by God and he died. Notice that this young convert never prayed for his Uncle to die. God just stepped in and passed a Judgement of death on him.
I feel sad for that Uncle because he has entered an eternity of pain and regrets. However there is nothing anyone can do for him now. He made his choice to reject Jesus and he will have to face the consequences for all eternity.
In the next module we shall look at the fact that the Judgement decided by God can be revealed to and declared by His Prophets. However such Prophets have to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit not just their personal desires and decision. To be continued…
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